


The Ice Prince

by Goodknight



Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Assisted Suicide Ideation (implied/non-graphic), Curses, Dark!Jack, Death and Suffering, M/M, Magic, True Love's Kiss, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 23:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6399124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goodknight/pseuds/Goodknight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch mounted his horse and declared that he, the Knight of Shadows, would break the Ice Prince's curse himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Night snuffed the mountain. Sir Pitch had been struggling through the pass between The Sisters for two days, making slow progress in the knee deep snow, leading his unfortunate horse behind him. He'd hoped to have left the mountains by sundown. Even during the day, light was scarce, and Pitch walked without need of a torch only at high noon. The sun was like a kindled fire, burning brief and small before disappearing with a puff of blinding smoke - fog crept down the valley all the dark evening, and the blackness was so absolute, Pitch felt as if he was wandering through the icy Underworld itself.   
  


Worse, he was always taken by surprise: no red sunset marked the beginning of night. One moment, he was tucking himself against the side of a Sister, pressing his fingers into her rocky waist as he navigated her boulderous feet, his mare snorting and scrambling after him; the next, he was blinking into shadow thicker than any he'd encountered before.   
  


It was some magic, of course. The same magic that kept the Kingdom of Burgess, which the Sisters and their mountainous system surrounded like a fortress wall, cloaked in eternal winter.   
  


Pitch hadn't slept since he'd first slipped between the mountains - they were too unforgiving, the valley collected new snow like a cavernous bowl, the mountain faces dripped with icicles that were tapered like daggers and hard as diamond. There was nowhere to make camp, no comfort to be had on the narrow path between peaks. Pitch could hardly wait to leave them behind.   
  


A sharp wind cut at Pitch's cheeks all through the night, leaving ice crystals in his thick black hair and pushing snowflakes into his furs. It was morning by the time he broke through the pass. All the world was grey, except the wind-burnt Knight in his heavy black cloak, and his cold black horse.   
  


He'd been wearing only a tunic when he'd galloped away from a tavern in Lunanoff, the sun on his face and sweat on his back, in search of the cursed Kingdom of Burgess and its winter palace.   
  


'No glory-thirsty saviour who has breached those sordid Sisters has yet returned,' one of the locals had said, 'it is a place of only death, now, ruled by Winter and settled by snow.'

 

So, Pitch had mounted his horse and declared that he, the Knight of Shadows, who feared no storm, and balked at no challenge, would break the curse himself, post haste! - and the tavern had cheered him off and lifted their tankards of ale. 'Gods be with you!' they had cried, 'Gods help you, brave Knight of the Shadow! Return victorious!' His horse's hooves beat like victory drums against the roadway. That was always how it was, when he left on some new quest; the suffering towns folks’ celebration stirred him into an eager madness, and that madness fed his flight into the treacherous North.  

 

He set up camp among the windswept pines, and, in the morning, swung with relief into the saddle. The day was crisp and yellow, here; sunlight glanced brilliantly off the hard packed snow. The trees had all been stripped of their life by the arctic winds, so they twisted out of the permafrost like broken fingers. 'It is said the castle stands in the centre of the Three Lakes, named Daeda, Berdart, and Tilyanna, after the three children of Burgess' first King, many hundreds of years ago.' A girl at the tavern had told him, 'As the lakes are now frozen, and can be crossed, the path is nearly straight from the Sisters.' Pitch had pushed his pottage down the table in favour of giving her his full attention. 'How do you know so much of this land?' he had asked, and she'd replied: 'I have studied many histories,' and revealed nothing more.  _ She's highborn _ , he'd thought, watching her rip off a piece of her trencher, and, with some sorrow,  _ She looks so much like the Nightmare Queen _ .

 

The Three Lakes were startlingly clear, and far larger than Pitch had imagined them. When he looked down at the ice from atop his horse, he felt he could see for hundreds of feet into an endless and perfect darkness. The feeling was deeply unsettling.

 

His usually loyal horse refused, at first, to step out onto the glassy surface. She ducked from side to side as he held tight his reins and urged her forward, balked and reared as Pitch pushed his heels desperately into her, before stepping reluctantly onto the ice.  _ Daeda _ , Pitch thought, stroking her heavy neck,  _ this is Daeda _ .

 

Beyond Daeda, flanked on each side by her vast, frozen siblings, gleamed the castle. The stone glittered as if it had been brushed by broken stars, like it were made of mineral instead of rock. Clouds hung low over the towers. It was fitting, Pitch thought, to call it the Ice Palace - whatever it had once been, it was a spectacle of frost, now. The pinnacles rose more sharply than any Pitch had seen before, fortified by ice that finished in brutal points. When he approached the ramparts, he saw that they, too, had been made taller and thicker by a coating of ice and packed snow. The mote was frozen solid.

 

As he approached the footbridge, his mare's loud chewing on the bit and the cracking sound of wind the only sounds, he was struck by how desolate the Kingdom of Burgess had become, under the hand of the cursed Prince who had doomed it. Pitch turned to look out over the lake he'd just crossed, over the barren wilderness. Perhaps the villages and farms had been covered. He could see no sign that there ever was life in Burgess, only flurries and wisps of snow blowing over the empty land.

 

He rode across the bridge and through the gates, his sword at the ready. The inner ward was full of statues. Knights, ducking behind shields; princesses with hands up as though conjuring magic in their palms; princes poised with swords in their grip and determined ferocity on their face; ladies preparing to throw spears as long as they were tall. A mob of people in roughspun tunics and brandishing torches were gathered in a semi circle around one of the walls, and as a vision of a boy Prince pressed against the stone, cornered by their flames, flashed through his mind, Pitch suddenly understood. The people who had once tried to defeat Jack Frost, the Ice Prince of Burgess, were gathered here in the castle, frozen.

He leapt from his horse's back and approached one of the Prince's victims. Behind the thick ice, he could see the pattern at the man's collar, the braided belt at his waist. When he looked at his face, he met squinting brown eyes, glanced down at a mouth open on a shout.

 

"Perhaps it's time to find the Prince." Pitch muttered, tying the reins of his horse so she could wander the yard in wait of him.

 

The castle itself was well preserved, cold but blessedly devoid of snow, full of rich fabrics, long tapestries, and cloth-of-gold hangings. Pitch wandered into a room stocked with books on wooden shelves. Just above a metal table, where there sat displayed gold and silver cups on polished plates, was a portrait of the family. The Queen, a mousy woman sitting on cushions embroidered with midnight blue flowers, a young princess with a bewildered look to her, and the Ice Prince. He stood behind them both, one hand on the back of his mother's chair, the other on his sister's shoulder. He was small and weak, with the same underfed look as his little startled sister, but the shine on his eyes was colder than that on the lake. The painter had done him no favours - his complexion was pallid as cream, so he looked more corpse than child, and his hair was as white. Pitch wondered what sorcery could create a boy such as that.

 

It didn't take long before he came across the throne room. Both heavy doors had been pulled shut from inside. Pitch's heart raced with anticipation. The Ice Prince was surely within. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, patted down his furs, and pushed at the doors with both hands.

 

They stuck.

 

He shoved again, pushed all his weight into the wood, but only succeeded in making a lot of loud bangs.

 

Suddenly, with a sound like glass breaking, the doors swept open, revealing a long room lined with stained glass windows. A strip of sapphire satin stretched from Sir Pitch's feet to the base of a tall, ice coated throne.

 

"It's polite to knock." Said the young man sitting there, one leg hanging off the arm rest, his chin propped in his palm. He was dressed in simple deerskin pants, a tunic the colour of forget-me-nots, and a cloak trimmed with white fur. In the old painting, he had looked like an empty, skinny child. Now, Pitch thought, he looked more like a wild thing, a creature of magic and spirit. The years had seen his face become angled, his brow grow thick and dark. Something of his life had given his shoulders a determined, cocky set, had set a malicious and playful glint in his jewel-bright eyes.

 

Pitch felt breathless as he stepped towards the Ice Prince, and not only because the air was so frigid and thin. He shifted his sword in his hand, and saw the Prince follow the movement with a nervous eye. Snow battered the windows.

 

He cleared his throat once more. The Prince raised an eyebrow. Pitch could see frost decorating his clothing in whorls and ferns.  _ What sorcery, _ he thought again,  _ saw him become this? _

 

"Ice Prince." The Knight announced, drawing a breath, "I am here... to bestow upon you True Love's Kiss."

 

There was a pause, during which Pitch felt suddenly stupid, holding his sword in his hand, and returned it to its sheath at his hip. The Prince began to laugh, a maniacal, shattered laugh, leaning forward so his elbows rested atop his knobbly knees. It looked to Pitch as though his crown was in danger of falling off.

 

"That's not what you're supposed to do!" The Ice Prince cried, "You're  _ supposed _ to try to kill me!"

 

"Ah. And why is that? In my experience, there are two ways to break a curse."

 

"Obviously," The Ice Prince's blue eyes narrowed, and he leant forward more still, shaking his head, "because no one can ever love me."

  
"Well," said Pitch, drawing himself up, " _ Well _ , I think  _ I _ shall try."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading! ❤ I really hope you enjoy this chapter. :)

"Will Mother be alright?" Emma asked, as Jack's nimble fingers fastened her cloak about her shoulders.

 

He let his hands run down her tiny arms, meeting her earnest gaze with a tight lipped seriousness. "When I sell the sheep at market, I'll buy her the best medicine I can find."

 

His sister nodded, wiggling out of his grip. "When we have no more sheep, will you still be a shepherd, Jack?"

 

"I suppose not."

 

"What will you be, then?"

 

Jack turned to look at his flock, the last of his late father's sheep, now a ragged huddle of thin wool and glassy, sickly eyes staring back at him. "I'll be your brother." He answered. "And I will always protect you."

 

"And Mother?"

 

"And Mother. I promise."

  
  


Jack slept in the branches of a willow tree, his crook balanced on his stomach. He rested in small, anxious bursts, checking frequently that none of the flock had wandered off. But the sheep grazed calmly and lay about under his hanging feet until morning. Come daylight he guided them through the forest and safely out again, took a break to let them drink from Tilyanna, the lake that wrapped itself around the castle and stretched into the farmlands, before continuing towards the market at the castle's edge.

 

His father had always called Tilyanna 'The Crook,' for her long, gnarled shape. Berdart was the fat round Sheep, and Daena was for Emma, because she'd always liked the stories about that sister best; the princess who strolled through her father's garden, taking and eating what she please with a mischievous charm. Jack liked that - thinking the lakes were for their family, instead of that of some boring old King. He dipped his toe in Emma's lake when they passed it. He hoped the sheep would sell for enough to buy Emma something with honey in it from the city, something sweet she'd never tasted.

 

The market was a busy cluster of vendors at the centre of the capitol. Jack's sheep were frightened in the narrow streets, and he had to grab them around the belly with his stick when they went astray. Their bleating barely registered over the shouting, the bartering, the laughter of children playing.

 

"Sheep!" Jack called, trying to assert himself over the din, "Only a shilling! Sheep for a shilling!"

 

He wandered between booths, coughing at the pungent smells of the city, trying not to lose a sheep to the crowd. "Shilling! Sheep for a shilling!"

 

He paused at midday to eat a piece of dry bread he'd brought from home, taking the three sheep remaining with him to Daena-the-lake-for-Emma to splash cool water on his face. The bluster and noise in the city made his collar itch. He was unused to crowds, disliked the way they stifled the humid summer air with the stench of sewage and rosewater and horse.

 

"Sheep for 9 pence and a penny!" Jack called, when the sun was beginning to sink into the Valley of the Seven Spears to the East, burning the hills behind Tilyanna like a great hearthfire. He had one sheep left at his side. Women were starting to put out signs advertising ale and pyes, and soppes of onion, drawing the crowds into their taverns.

Dusk saw Jack leaning on his shepherd's crook, taking 8 pence for the last of his father's sheep. He was glad to be unburdened, of course, but so weary that his arms drooped and his thighs felt liquid with exhaustion. The sheep had been their livelihood. He had once sworn to himself that he would take care of his family, after his father had passed.  _ Some job I'm doing of that, _ he thought, fingering the shillings in his cloak pocket, _ some shepherd I am. Some brother. Some son. _

 

He'd seen the apothecary while wandering, and retraced his steps back to it. It was a pungent place, full of herbs and spices, poultices and potions. The woman inside was busy crushing something with a mortar and pestle when Jack slipped through the door.

 

"Good evening." She said, turning the bowl clockwise several times, and then pounding at it again. "What do you seek, shepherd?"

 

"Good evening." Jack resisted the urge to correct her. Not a shepherd; just a fourteen year old boy. Just nothing. "My mother is very ill."

 

"And what of her birth?"

 

"It was during the harvest, under the Stag and the Huntsman."

 

"What symptoms doe she have?"

 

"She complains of the cold, and must lay near the fire, but she sweats."

 

The woman nodded. "Yes, yes." She was muttering, as she carried on with her mortar and pestle - though gently, now, quietly.

 

"She's hot to touch. Her pain... it's dire. She cannot stand, and she gasps for breath."

 

"Does she cough, child?"

 

Jack nodded. "She coughs some red..." He gestured to his nose, "Something that is not quite blood."

 

"It is blood." Said the woman. "She coughs the lungs."

 

Jack's face paled. "What can be done?" he asked.

 

"I will brew her a potion of unicorn horn and gold mined from the Sisters, whose spirits protect us all. She must have blood returned to her, and so I will make her the hippocras of red wine, cloves, pepper, and goat's blood. For her pain, she will drink seven potions, one a day, and they are here." She gestured to a shelf just beside and behind her, full of cloudy purple liquid. "This magic will heal and soothe her, if it is given to her during the new moon in two days time."

 

Jack let out a grateful breath. "What is the price of this cure?" He asked, pulling out his shillings and his pennies, so the healer could see them, glittering duly on his palm. "I have - "

 

"No less than 80 crowns will suffice."

 

"I have only this, please, my mother -"

 

"I can brew nothing to help your wilting mother for a handful of shillings and a prayer, shepherd. The unicorn grows rarer every day - there may very well be no horn to be had come sunrise tomorrow."

Jack returned his money to his pocket. "I could work for you." He said, "I could -"

 

"I have my own sons and daughters, and they have sons and daughters. I want not for children to work. I am sorry, child. Give your mother a cold cloth for her feverish head."

"A cold cloth." Jack repeated, quietly, anger boiling in his stomach.

 

"Aye. Farewell, shepherd."

 

He left the apothecary with coiled fists and a burning throat, pressure building behind his eyes. _Unicorn horn, gold from the Sisters, goat's blood, cloves, pepper,_ he thought. _I will find these things myself, and I will find magic, and I will brew this potion, and I will save her._

"Angry boy." Said a voice from the shadows between the apothecary and a small, quiet tavern.

 

Jack whirled at the sound. There, holding a bundle of dried herbs and half a chicken with feathers still clinging to its pinkish skin, stood an old woman. "You have been disappointed by the healer." she said.

 

"My mother is ill. I cannot afford the cure."  

 

"Can you not?" Said the woman, looking curious and concerned. "Perhaps I could be of some help."

 

"Do you just crouch in the shadows, there, waiting for someone to..." Jack struggled to find his words, and the woman drew back, just enough that he had to step forward so her face wasn't cloaked in darkness.

 

"Need me?"

 

Jack nodded curtly.

 

"I have been waiting for you, Jack Frost, specifically, because you need me."

"How -"

 

"It is not medicine you want, is it, Jack? You worry that you have lost your very life."

 

Jack leant against his crook, the anger mixing with a deep, strange dread. "What do you mean?"

 

"I could help you trade your life for another, Jack, son of the shepherd." The woman took both her herbs and her chicken in one hand, "at a price."

 

Jack shook his head. "I want only to provide for my family."

 

"The son of a shepherd, who has no sheep, and no money. Who is nothing and no-one! How does that boy provide for his dying mother and his poor little sister?"

 

Jack grit his teeth. "I'm not in the mood to be _mocked_ \- "

 

"The son of a King," snapped the woman, "would do a better job of it, wouldn't you say?"

"It hardly matters, since I am not - "

 

The woman reached into her long, brown robes, and procured a silvery bottle. "You are a stupid boy." She said. " _I can offer you this life._ "

 

"I have no money." Whispered Jack. He realised, distantly, that this woman was suggesting something very unusual, probably illegal, likely dangerous, the sort of thing someone should say no to.

 

"I am aware, Jack-son-of-shepherd." Said the woman, "But that is not my price."

"I'll do anything, if it will help them."

 

The witch reached out her hand, crooked finger pointing, and touched Jack's chest. He felt his breath leave him; her touch was as cold as ice. "You must give up your old life. You must sacrifice it's lessons, feelings, and loves."

 

"What do you get out of that?"

 

"That is my business, Jack Frost."

 

Jack swallowed. The woman's finger dug into his ribs. His stomach growled as they stood in the alleyway. Somehow, they'd ended up far from the main streets, hidden from view. "I said I'd do anything." He finally said, slowly. "And I meant it. Help me."

 

The woman curled her finger and pulled it back, and Jack felt a tug. Something beautiful followed her hand: a warm, shimmering string. She pushed the bottle against his palm, hard, as panic made his knees buckle, made him struggle, and grabbed him by the jaw. "Swallow it" She hissed, her thumb digging between his teeth. Heat flowed freely from his heart into her hands, disappearing into her palms. He was startled still. The fear that had lounged dormant under his desperation ratcheted forcefully, painfully upwards - so when he lifted his arm to obey, it shook so much, he nearly spilt the bottle's contents into the road. As it was, some of the potion dribbled down his front, but most of it seared down his throat, so cold he wondered if it had ripped his mouth apart, if it was killing him. Then, a feeling like being doused in water. When he took breath, it curled out again full of tiny flurries.

 

The woman smiled.

 

"What did you do to me?" Jack asked, looking down at his paled palms, his bruised-looking fingernails, with a vague curiosity.

 

"Your heart is frozen, Prince Jack."

 

"All right."

 

"Whoever you meet will recognise you for what you are - what you have become. All you must do is introduce yourself to them. Be wary of those who already know you, for they will not be so easily fooled - they will remember who you once were."

 

Jack nodded.

 

"Fare well, young Prince."

 

He waved lazily at the woman, who faded back into the shadows, still holding the warmth, the love, the whatever it was she'd taken from him. "Fare well, witch."

  
  


"Announcing the Prince Jack Frost of Burgess!"

 

Emma drew her cloak tightly about her shoulders, a thick uncertainty curling in her stomach, watching as her brother dismounted unsteadily from his horse.

 

"Jack?" She asked. "You... left to sell the sheep."

 

Jack grinned, throwing his reins to one of the palace guards - his guards. Moonstones shone in the crown settled in his silver hair. The light morning wind ruffled ermine at his neck. "And I have now returned."

 

"Father..."

 

"Was the King."

 

Emma shook her head. "Father was a shepherd. You're a shepherd, Jack, I don't understand!"

 

He smiled at his sister. "There's nothing for you to understand." He'd brought her a horse, and a crown as pretty as she was. Every little girl wanted to be a princess. She would forget their life in the village soon enough. "I told you, Emma, that I would not return a shepherd." He turned to one of the knights. "Fetch my mother from inside."

 

"She's going to be alright, see?" Jack told Emma, as his Knights carried her out of the house. "She'll have the best possible care - the sort of care no shepherd could give her."

 

Emma had yet to look convinced, but it hardly mattered. Their mother was saved.

 

They rode up the Crook, past Daedra. Jack halted the procession a moment to tell Emma that the lake was hers - all hers. "Anything can be yours." He explained, "But this was always yours."

 

"This is Princess Daedra's lake." Emma said, clutching her reins tightly to her chest. She looked a mess on a horse. She rode hunched, like a beggar. "Jack, how - "

 

"No." Snapped Jack. "It is _mine_. And I'm _giving it to you_. Don't you see, Emma?"

 

"I don't see, Jack, how is this possible?"

 

"It is possible because I will it." Answered Jack, darkly. "Why do you argue?"

 

Emma was silent. She wore an expression like curdled milk. Jack wished she'd be more grateful; he'd given everything for her, and now he would give her everything.

 

They continued into the city, and Jack smiled when Emma looked with amazement at the castle, her eyes widening at the sight of it's towers, it's beautiful windows. "That's your home," he told her, "Princess Emma."

 

They passed through the same crowds where Jack had been selling sheep but a day before and Jack's smile widened. The rings on his fingers were worth a hundred sheep. "We must stop once more." He called out, raising a hand to the soldiers carrying his mother's litter, as they turned onto another familiar street. "I have business with the Healer here."

 

Jack's men obediently halted their horses in a row outside the city's apothecary, while Jack strutted inside.

 

"We meet again, Healer."

 

The Healer was weighing round, glittering red crystals. She scooped a handful slowly into a pouch before looking up at Jack with an odd expression - giving him time to cross his arms, to become impatient. "Indeed." She said, as slow as honey dripping from a spoon, "If you have brought the crowns, you will find yourself lucky, as I have here the last -"

 

Jack scoffed. "I am not here to offer you my business, fool!" The shop's shelves rattled as Jack's voice rose, and when he looked away from the Healer's face to the bottles behind her, he saw that they had frozen solid. Cracks chased across the ice. "It's too late for that, now - you should've helped me when I asked." He said. The bottles shattered, coating the floor with sparkling rainbows of glass and frozen potions. "I am the Prince of Burgess. I will take my cure - and you will have nothing."

 

"My Prince," The woman shrieked, scrambling to grab the crystals, which had been flung from their bags by the force of Jack's magical outburst,  "I did not know! I did not know who it was I was denying! That was the last of the potion and I know of no other source - the unicorn, I have no more horn."

 

Jack sneered. "The last of it?"

 

The woman looked manic - distraught. "In all the realms, your Highness!"

 

"Hm." He said, "Suppose it can't be helped, then." He looked about himself at the ruins, the Healer's livelihood, all destroyed. "That'll be all." He said, slowly, as though tasting the words.

 

Once more, he left the apothecary empty handed, giving the panicking Healer a little wave as he turned to walk out.

 

"One of you - deal with her." He told the guards, mounting his horse. "She's useless to me, now."

  
Whatever. He didn't like that Healer, anyway. A Prince of Burgess had better means of curing the sick, surely, than some stupid old woman.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate you guys :) Hope you enjoy this chapter and your summer! I know Jack isn't >:)

Burgess was dead.  
  
Abandoned tents flapped forever in the whistling winter wind, walls bent and broke and were buried by heavy snows. The city was preserved in this sort of cold misery. Ice fields stretched over farmland.  
  
When the winds settled, silence was so absolute as to drive a man insane with loneliness. Every building was entombed and insulated by snow-banks, every pathway curtained with flurries. If there had ever been footprints, they had been very thoroughly scrubbed from the streets. Standing on the castle battlements, looking out over the lakes and the long white land, one might assume the entire world was empty and barren and useless.  
  
Despite the weight of heavy snowfall gathered on their thatched roofs, the castle's stables still stood, looking very squat and cold, crowned by icicles as thick and as long as Pitch's forearm. By the time he'd dug out the door, sweat was beading on his brow.  
  
Inside, Pitch found the stalls bedded with straw, and tack and tools strewn carelessly about. Most of the hay was wet and rotten, but some had been stored well inside the barn, and he found several bags of oats and frozen horse-bread on the second floor.  
  
With his horse stabled and fed, Pitch returned to the castle. After their initial meeting, the Ice Prince had sent him away to prepare for supper, settling into his throne to do who knows what - pout, perhaps.  
  
He'd spent a long time laughing at the Knight, before dismissing him.  
  
"It's wonderful that I amuse you, but if you are quite done..." Pitch had sighed, pinching his nose with his fingers.  
  
"What if I'm not?" The Prince had snapped, grin fading into a petulant scowl. "What will you do?" His eyes flicked to Pitch's sword.  
  
"Carry on waiting, I suppose."  
  
The Ice Prince fiddled a moment with his cape. "Well, that would be boring."  
  
"Quite."  
  
"If you really mean to..." he sniffed, and a light wind played through his shock-white bangs, "What makes you think you'll succeed?"  
  
"I have an excellent track record."  
  
"With love?"  
  
"With quests."  
  
There was a deep silence as Jack Frost twisted in his chair, as though sitting so long was making him restless.  
  
"Perhaps we could take a short... reprise. From this discussion." Pitch suggested. "Stretch our legs."  
  
"Ha! Yes. But, Knight, what makes you think I want to take it up again? I could just..." The Prince waved his hand, and the throne room's frozen walls began to shriek. The sound made Pitch jump - and just in time, as ice careened across the floor, cracking and spitting. The frozen stones creaked under the pressure of icicles forming across their surface and then shooting away to collide and shatter chaotically in the centre of the hall. Pitch rolled and dived as shards of ice rattled down on him like rain. When he lifted his head, his hands were bleeding. Two thick gashes had opened on his cheek.  
  
Jack Frost shrugged, when Pitch looked up at him. "Good luck loving that." He teased.  
  
Pitch had nodded. "Thank you."  
  
For there must have been some part of the Ice Prince that wanted his curse broken. Pitch had walked out of the throne room cold but unfrozen - on the strict promise that he was not allowed to leave the castle and its courtyard. Jack had leveled him with a heady stare, bright eyed and slack faced, heavy brows and thick dark lashes, so certain and otherworldly - and told him that he would _know_ if Pitch got _cold feet_.  
  
A bitter wind followed him as he walked from the stables to the castle.  
  
He found Jack again in the Great Hall, sitting at the back in a heavy wooden chair. The room sang with it's emptiness - long tables and toppled benches glistened with a thin sheen of frost in the light of three tall candles, which Jack had placed in front of himself. The ceiling shrank away in darkness.  
  
Pitch skirted around the tables and made for the shaky circle of candlelight at the Prince's table. There was a place set for him next to Jack. His ration of dried fish, half a pickled egg, and vegetables in lemon juice was already on his plate. A small container of heavily salted butter and a single knife had been placed between himself and the Prince.  
  
"It must be very lonely here." Pitch said, pulling out his chair.  
  
The Prince's face was pale and blank. He had what Pitch assumed was the other half of the pickled egg. "Well, since there's no one here..." He took a sip from his goblet.  
  
Pitch followed suit. It was ice wine, very sweet and chilled. "Mm. How apt," he muttered. "You have no guard?"  
  
"Are you deaf, maybe?"    
  
"No one protects your royal person?" Pitch continued, ignoring the Prince's scowl. "You have no cook, no servants at all?"  
  
The Prince's face shifted from empty to angry, but Pitch continued.  
  
"You live alone in this castle?" He glanced about himself, "It seems rather large for one."  
  
" _Shut up_." Jack hissed. Ice crackled in the fabric of the carpets and the hangings on the walls.  
  
"Prince Jack," Pitch said, putting down his goblet, "why, if you would have me, I would offer you my sword. A Prince needs a Knight, for protection and companionship."  
  
Jack took the knife in his fist and began to cut his egg into strips. "He does," he said, after a long moment, during which Pitch kept his eyes on his plate. "And yet I have lost all my _loyal servants_." The Prince spat, his eyes cold. "I have lost _everyone._ How will you prove that you will... how can I trust you?"  
  
"Try me." Pitch said.  
  
The candles flickered. Jack's face was in sharp blue shadow, deep navy crags and blistering snow drifts, like a glacier. His lips looked painfully chapped. Perhaps he was miserable.  
  
"Alright, Knight." He jeered, at last, the mocking expression passing over his cheeks like a sweeping wind. "You have 7 days. If you win, and we fall in _love_ somehow, I will marry you and unfreeze the Kingdom. But if I win - which I will - you will kill me like you were supposed to."  
  
Pitch paused with his fork in a potato. The Hall was so silent, he could hear Jack's breath shake with a sound not unlike a soft breeze whistling. Jack kept clattering the knife against his plate, cutting his egg smaller and smaller. He was thin, under his long ermine cloak, and the tip of his nose looked bruised. Frostbitten.  
  
Pitch felt his resolve harden. "I accept your challenge."  
  
They ate in silence for several minutes. Jack poured Pitch more wine when his goblet was empty, and the candle wax melted sluggishly.  
  
"My name is Sir Kozmotis Pitchiner." Pitch said, as Jack chewed on his flavourless fish. "I was - am - a Knight of Shadows; one of the Nightmare Queen's personal guard. I had a place on her council for many years."  
  
"Don't know who that is." Jack said. "I am Jack Frost. Prince of Burgess." He said it like ' _obviously_ ' and ' _who cares_.'  
  
"Lunanoff is my homeland." Pitch continued, staring at Jack's busy hands. "Thanks to the sorcery of our late Queen, it was trapped in eternal night for many years, steeped in darkness and constantly at war with the surrounding Kingdoms. I swore to serve the royal family until the day of my death. I was the Nightmare Queen's most trusted confidant, and the head of her army. She was ruthless, bold in her strategy, always self-serving, yes... but also graceful, proud, and dignified. A true Queen. But she was assassinated. Day was returned to the land. Our allies are still few, but growing. I am a Lord and a mercenary, now, since our new ruler hardly trusts his predecessor's most important servant. I was honourably but forcibly retired from the Guard."  
  
"You called yourself Sir." Jack noted. He was watching Pitch, for the first time, with real interest. "You still call yourself a Knight of Shadows."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You were in love with her." Jack guessed, "The Nightmare Queen."  
  
"I love my Kingdom, it's people, and it's Crown." Pitch responded. "But, yes, I was in love with her. So, you see, Jack - you will not scare _me_ with your threats and your pasts sins. I can guarantee the Nightmare Queen matched and exceeded them. I am capable of great loyalty and devotion. I won't abandon my quest, or go back on my word. I _can_ love you, Jack. " He stood, taking one of the candles from the table. The Hall had darkened with the onset of night, the shadows lengthening and dancing against the walls. "Goodnight."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've entered another one of those terrible places in life where I'm busy 17 hours out of the day and exhausted the rest. Writing isn't fitting into the schedule right now, and I'm always very sorry for it. :( Luckily I remembered just a moment ago that I'd already written about 98% of this chapter! Hopefully the tide will go out or come in or do whatever it needs to do to put me back on track. I really appreciate everyone who reads and says hello! And I hope you're all enjoying the summer!

Marie Overland did not wake in the morning. Emma was curled against her side, red faced and puffy eyed, clutching the Queen's sleeve as she slept. There was a fire roaring greedily in the hearth, and mother and daughter both were covered in thick blankets and deer hide.  
  
Jack sat in the corner with his head in his hands. Frost crackled at his feet and trickled away from him in little melted streams, following the lines in the oaken floor.  
  
It had been nearly a week since he'd brought her into the castle. Six days of herbs, potions, poultices, the castle Healer trying to break her fever and still the shaking in her hands with gold dust and horse's blood and witch hazel and spells. When she was awake, she often hallucinated that she was back home with their Father. Emma refused to leave her side, even though her Mother's delusional muttering and cloudy eyes obviously distressed her.  
  
Jack stayed in the corner. His mother began to tremble whenever he came too near, muttering about the unnatural chill. 'Oh, Darling.' She would say, as though speaking to the ghost of her late husband, 'it is so cold. Do we have wood enough for the winter?'  
  
"It's not winter." Jack snapped, on the fourth day, banging his shepherd's crook on the floor. "Stop it and get better!"  
  
And Emma had cried. She clung to her Mother like a leech, wrapping her tiny arms around her body, tugging at her clothes. She hid her face in Marie's long brown hair. She wouldn't look at Jack until Marie was sleeping again, but by then her brother was moping on the other side of the room, inaccessible to her. He'd become an impenetrable wall of ice.  
  
"Don't leave me alone with him." Emma whispered into her Mother's ear on the fifth night, while Marie's eyes stared unfocused at the cloth hangings on the bed. "Please, Mother. Please."  
  
But Marie said nothing, that night. She closed her eyes to sleep, and her breathing stopped by sunrise.  
  
So, Jack had the Healer executed.  
  
"I am a Prince." He said, voice muffled by his frigid fingers, as he sat in his chair by his Mother's fire, after she'd been taken away.  
  
Emma was still sitting on the bed. She'd been bawling all morning. Her face was red and swollen.  
  
"A Prince should..." Jack lifted his head. A shadow seemed to be over him, as though he were huddled in some deep cave, instead of touched by the sunlight from the small window. "This is unacceptable."  
  
Emma started to cry again. Quietly.  
  
Jack couldn't bear it any longer. He rose from his chair and swept to the door, cape dragging heavily behind him, and left.

  
  
Emma moved into their Mother's chambers. The servants were so sweet to her, they let her do anything she liked. Jack didn't mind. He watched from the staircase as a mousy young girl brought Emma trays laden with blackberry wine and tartes surrounded by wildflowers.  
  
Jack knew he had failed. He wanted to feel weighed down by it, grieved, consumed by his mistakes. He wanted to be plagued by memories of his Mother, and to weep for her. But he did not. He stood alone on the stairs, catching glimpses of Emma lying heart-broken in Marie's deathbed.  
  
And there was work to be done. Summer had bent swiftly to harsh wintery storms. The crops were buried in snow. Farmers dropped to their knees before him when he held audience, begging the castle open it's stores to them. Jack hadn't a clue how to handle them. He'd never been in a castle before last week. He barely knew where his own rooms were.  
  
Jack wasn't sure how long his own food would last. He didn't know what to do about the peasants. And Emma was all that mattered, all he had left. He was concerned with her interests alone.  
  
She took little pleasure in being a princess. She refused to eat in the Hall, taking all her meals in their Mother's old room. She was constantly asking Jack to let her go outside, even though the snow piled higher each day, and the people in the streets agitated at the gates and flung things at the walls.  
  
"It's not safe." Jack would tell her, and she called him 'mean' or 'boring' or 'terrible' or accused him of being a changling, depending on her mood.  
  
She didn't understand what he'd done for her.

  
  
When he had been the Prince of Burgess for two months, they'd started calling him the 'Ice Prince' to his face. It made him wonder what they called him in secret. Hail banged the stain glass windows in the throne room, lightning cracked the sky. The sun was only ever a feeble, yellowish stain on the crisp blue sky and the lakes at the castle's feet dashed constantly against their shores, churning up foam in the cold winds that blew from all directions. The trees were stripped bare.  
  
Everyone knew he had magic. Sometimes, Burgess' citizens banged sticks against the castle gates shouting 'Sorcerer!' and demanding an end to the early winter.  
  
Jack sat alone in his cold castle, most of the time. He had dismissed many of the servants for annoying him, boring him, whatever. Sometimes he swore some of them left of their own accord, escaping over the drawbridge in the night, because they knew he wasn't paying attention to their numbers anymore. He felt numbed through.  
  
His sister played in the dead garden, in the stables, and in her room, with a handful of little Lords and Ladies. Jack wasn't sure whether or not she was getting happier. He used to be able to sense her moods - when she was getting tired walking down the forest paths, when the heat from the always-blazing fire in their little house and their Mother's constant coughing was stifling her. He used to know how to fix it, what to say to make her smile and laugh again. But he didn't feel like smiling, or laughing, the way he used to.  
  
So, he sat alone. And so did she.  
  
  
"The peasants must starve." Jack declared to his council, one dark and foggy evening. He had been served a cup of warm mulled wine, but it had iced over before it touched his lips. "The castle's coffers will not be opened."  
  
His council was very small. He never took their advice. He hated them. He hated being a Prince. He hated meetings, and signing documents, and the people who hurled themselves at the castle walls demanding he help them, because he couldn't, he needed to help Emma. He'd never had so much responsibility in his life, and he couldn't do it. He couldn't even do the things he used to, anymore. He wasn't even sure where Emma was at any given moment during the day. She seemed afraid of him.  
  
His cup shattered, shards ricocheting off the hangings and the sides of the chairs, careening into the robes of the people sitting at his table. Snow whirled around their heads. Being inside with Jack was no different to being outside in the always brewing storm.  
  
Suddenly, with a bang that made him jump, a child sprang into the council room.  
  
"My dear -" Started a councilwoman, putting down her goblet.  
  
"It's Emma, it's Emma!" The girl shouted, dropping to her knees, watery eyes fixed on Jack. "She fell. We were only playing!"  
  
Jack stood swiftly. "Where is she?" He demanded, but his voice came out hoarse. Wind whipped his hair, burnt his cheeks, but he didn't feel it.  
  
"Daeda." Sobbed the girl. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know we're not allowed. But, she begged us, everyday, Your Majesty."  
  
Jack grit his teeth. "But where is she?"  
  
"She fell. She fell. She's in Daeda."  
  
Jack felt. He felt so strongly, his entire body shook like a dying leaf on a branch. The windows went dark. Ice formed so thickly over the table, a councilmen's hands were stuck fast to the surface, and he shrieked like he'd been burnt. "WHY HAS NO ONE TAKEN HER OUT?" Jack screamed, fisting his fingers in his hair.  
  
The girl couldn't speak through her tears. By the time her voice worked again, Jack had run from the room, and the councilman with the frozen hands had collapsed on the floor, palms bleeding. "She drowned. She drowned. She drowned." The young Lady wept, "I'm sca-a-red."

  
  
He hadn't been able to retrieve Emma. Daeda, Berdart, and Tilyanna froze, and became ice fields. The clouds that hung over the Kingdom thickened and darkened impossibly, until they were as black as night, spitting ice and snow that buried the town and the market and the taverns, and the signs that advertised pyes and soppes and ale in the evenings.  
  
Those who lived in the castle - cooks, handmaidens, stable-hands, Lords and Ladies of the council - gathered in the courtyard where Jack stood, wrapped in his storm, dry-eyed and tight fisted, and surrounded him. Knights held swords. The butcher gripped a ferocious looking knife, his face red as rare steak. They made a ring around their cursed Prince, and meant to kill him.  
  
When he turned, backed against the wall like a shivering rabbit at the mercy of the hounds, each of them froze solid. Just like that.  
  
Burgess' population had lowered dramatically since Jack had become the son of the King. In the hours following Emma's death, it dropped to one.  
  
Jack had made himself more alone than he ever could have imagined.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reading, whether you've left kudos, comments, or simply stopped by! Don't tell but you guys are my favourite readers and I love you. One chapter left :( I hope you like this one!!

Pitch awoke to cloying silence. His fire had died during the night and left his chambers hard and cold as stone. When he padded towards the window, he saw a sheet of white and small, gentle slopes like burial mounds, and a winking pale sun that made it all glitter like lead crystal. A light wind played with the powder on top. Sometimes Pitch thought he saw game animals, white foxes and rabbits, that dissolved and returned to the snow before rising up again to dance in the rare stillness of the usually agitated winter air.  
  
Pitch was used to eating breakfast, but when he spent the morning without once seeing Jack, it became obvious to him that Jack was not. He brushed his horse vigorously, watered her, cleaned her stall, and finally bridled her.  
  
His fingers kept warm wrapped in her mane, and his legs around her barrel. They walked once around the perimetre of the castle's inner walls, and then wove between the buildings, hugging walls to avoid the deepest snow. Pitch found the armoury - sealed shut, impossible to open, and he didn't think Jack had done that by accident - and the practise yard. He was leaning down over his mare's shoulder to see if he couldn't pry a splintered jousting lance out of a snow bank when Jack materalised behind him.  
  
'What are you doing?' He asked.  
  
Pitch's horse jumped sideways and Pitch slid off, slowly, like giving up.  
  
'Other than falling off your horse.'  
  
'Hacking.' Pitch answered, brushing himself off.  
  
'Looked like snooping.'  
  
'Snooping would require... something to snoop in. Or around.'  
  
'Or with.' Jack supplied, 'or after.'  
  
'Indeed. But you've locked all your doors.'  
  
'I actually haven't.' Jack shrugged. 'We're snowed out. Of most of the outbuildings, anyway.'  
  
'You're in a pleasant mood this morning.' Pitch noted.  
  
'Maybe I'm talking before I kill you.'  
  
'That would strike me as counter-productive.'  
  
Jack paced in front of him for a moment, like he was restless, stamping the snow in his path until it was smooth and hard. 'You've been ignoring me.' He finally said. 'I thought you wanted to fall in love with me.'  
'Is that what you want?'  
  
'Don't be pedantic.'  
  
'What should I be, then, my Prince?' Pitch kept his eyes on Jack as he bowed shallowly. 'A Knight must keep his horse - '  
  
'Interesting.' Jack snapped. 'The horse is boring.'  
  
'You must have grown up riding.' Pitch said, 'And you never had fun? Racing, jumping, fighting?'  
  
'Being a Prince is not about fun.'  
  
'No.' Pitch agreed. 'Neither is being a Knight.' He led his horse to the side of the armoury, where the boards on the walls made for a decent foothold for him to swing back aboard.  
  
Jack followed him with his pale eyes, looking put upon. The wind was picking up, howling through the arrow slits.  
  
'Come over here so I can give you a leg up.' Pitch called to him over the growing gale. 'We can ride double for a while.'  
  
The sun never fully shone through the hazy cloud cover, but by dinnertime the chill had gone out of Pitch's toes and the breeze was soft. The courtyard was covered with hoof prints, and they had made a circular track looping around some of the frozen warriors who looked on, jealous in death, as Pitch held Jack's sides steady with his forearms.  
  
They had walked, at first. Jack gripped the horse's long black mane rigidly in one hand and clutched at Pitch with the other, cementing himself. 'How does a Prince avoid learning to ride?' Pitch asked.  
Jack was relaxing by the second. 'Father was a shepherd.' He said.  
  
'A shepherd King?'  
  
'Just a shepherd.'  
  
'Ah.'  
  
After a couple tours of the yard, Pitch eased his horse into a slow, rocking canter. Jack lay heavy on his front as he angled slightly backwards, and tightened his fingers, but it wasn't long before he let out a sharp breath through his nose, almost laughter.  
  
'Can we go faster?' He asked.  
  
Pitch was holding the reins in one hand, the other resting on Jack's stomach, grounding. 'Relax your legs.' He said. And then they went faster, just barely, so the wind picked at their eyes like carrion birds at a wet carcass, and Jack laughed, and the sun didn't come out, but it was yellow in the yard, like it wanted to; like it might tomorrow.

  
'Becoming a Prince was part of your curse.' Pitch guessed. He was sitting at an angle to Jack in a large armchair, staring into the dead embers of one of the castle's many fireplaces. The portrait above it showed only the Ice Prince and the little Princess, both looking like sad village children in costumes.  
  
Jack sipped noisily at his ale.  
  
'I told you my story.' Pitch said smoothly.  
  
'All of it?'  
  
'No, but enough of it. Mutual vulnerability. Sharing.' Pitch twisted his hand in the air. 'I'm almost certain those are important in a relationship.'  
  
'Is that what this is? A relationship?' Jack perked up, lifting his head from his chalice. 'That's hilarious. That you think that.'  
  
'What else is it, then?'  
  
'Uh, a disaster?' Jack suggested. 'A thing that's doomed to fail? My last mistake?'  
  
Pitch put his empty goblet on the stone floor. 'This isn't all about you.'  
  
'Yeah it is.'  
  
'You're not the only person to ever be cursed, Jack.'  
  
Jack huffed and leant back in his chair, slapping his hands on the armrests. 'It's not about being cursed! And it's not about you, either, O Knight of Shadows, and your stupid post-exile quests or your redemption, if that's your thing, I don't know. It's not about the Kingdom, because it's been destroyed. It's not about anything.' Jack's rising crescendo dwindled until his voice was hollow and soft. 'There is nothing left for it to be about.'  
  
'That's fair.' Pitch conceded. 'It just is.'  
  
'It's just over.' Jack was being swallowed by the armchair, sinking into it like it was a thick red bath.  
  
'Not yet. I have six days left. After which we will have an entire lifetime to find something new for "it" to be about.'  
  
'You're a stubborn ass.'  
  
  
The next day, Pitch found Jack in the morning and invited him to drink with him. It took him over an hour - Jack was sequestered away in a tower, up a narrow spiral staircase.  
  
'I'm rationing.' Jack snapped, when Pitch knocked and announced his intentions. 'Obviously.'  
  
'You only have five more days here,' Pitch reminded him, 'before we ride for the Tavern across the border. I will buy you all the ale you could ever drink when we get there.'    
  
There was a thump on the door, like Jack had thrown his pillow.  
  
The tower was softer than the rest of the castle; obviously lived in. Dust hung in the sunlight through the small window next to Jack's door, and the shadows cloistered on the ceiling in rounded, benign lumps, like huddled black sheep. Cold seeped through the castle's stones, refreshing and sharp, and a lazy wind drifted from under Jack's doors to plant flurries in the smooth fur of Pitch's high-collared cloak.  
  
'Then will you walk with me?' Pitch asked.  
  
The door swung open, pouring out curls of snowflakes and Jack, who was wearing a simple white tunic and soft leather pants. Pitch had never seen him without his furs or his off-kilter crown. He was a meagre man, more hare than princely lion, and it was never more obvious than when he stood so close under Pitch's chin. Pitch could see over his head into the tower room, could see that Jack was sleeping on a small bed made with knitted blankets and goat pelts, and that there were no portraits on the walls or golden ornaments. It was entirely unlike the rest of the castle; a private and personal space. 'If you insist.' Jack said, rocking up on the balls of his bare feet to try to put his face in the way of Pitch's view. 'Snoop.'

  
Jack walked slightly ahead of Pitch, his shorter steps quick and light. Sometimes Pitch lost sight of him in the thick haze; the dense frost particles pierced even his leather boots and his wool socks.  
  
After a few minutes quiet tromping, the air cleared enough that when Pitch lifted his nose out of his cloak, he could see the inner castle walls just behind him. Jack was leading him like a will-o-the-wisp leads the damned into the blank space between the court and the outer walls. Three story high mountains rose from the fog - buried houses framing an unused road. Jack's footprints lasted but seconds before they were swept away.  
  
'I know the way.' Jack was saying, the point of his elbow occasionally peeking out of the gloom.  
  
'Comforting.' Pitch answered. 'Do you walk here... often?'  
  
'I used to.' Jack never seemed to walk in a straight line, weaving like he was avoiding invisible crowds instead of wandering alone on an old, empty road in a dead market.  
  
'With your sister?'  
  
'You're a good guesser.' Jack's voice was brittle. Pitch smelt lightning in the air, and something crisp and plain. The mist was chasing itself across the ground; he could see the bottoms of Jack's feet in front of him, now, the straight lines of his body. 'But no. I never came here with her.'  
  
Pitch lengthened his loping stride to corner Jack at his side. 'Will you tell me something about her?' He asked.  
  
'Why? She's not here. Why do you care?'  
  
'I think you care, Jack.' Pitch took a deep breath, let the winter fill his lungs. 'I don't think your heart is very good at freezing.'  
  
Jack bristled. 'What's that supposed to mean?'  
  
'It means I know when I'm the company of cruelty, of evil.'  
  
'So?'  
  
'I haven't been since I arrived. Not really.'  
  
This only seemed to make Jack angrier. 'You don't know anything.' He growled, stopped on his heel and spun, swinging his arm out to propel himself backwards out of Pitch's reach. 'Nothing!'  
  
'Jack, listen to me.'  
  
'No!' Jack crossed his arms. 'I made a deal. Years ago, with a witch. To change who I was.'  
  
Pitch waited while Jack breathed. There was a current between them; a wind barrier. Pitch wondered if it would sweep him away if he stepped through it to put his hands on Jack's arms, to comfort him somehow.  
'My Mother was dying.' Jack finally confessed. 'And I wasn't her brother anymore. I was supposed to be, but I... And I... I wanted to change.'  
  
Pitch made a sympathetic noise and risked approaching. He'd heard somewhere that, if a person was swept up in the sea, they should swim diagonally to shore, or surely drown. He cut just such a diagonal line to Jack, feeling the wind cut his cheeks and prick his wet feet like needles, and burn his hands.  
  
'I don't know who I am.' Jack gasped. 'I don't...'  
  
Pitch wrapped him in his arms, clutched the back of his thin tunic, and pressed Jack's dry face to his thorax, gripping him rigidly. 'I know.' He whispered. His voice tumbled harshly over the gale. He felt like he was in the eye of a great storm, tethering himself to Jack. 'I know.'

  
  
That night, they ate in the armchairs again. Pitch was quickly becoming attached to the routine. He hung his socks from the mantle and dragged a footstool over for his numbed feet.  
  
Jack curled around his mulled wine. Ice trailed his fingers in curlicues and ferns. 'I'm cursed.' Jack said to the wine.  
  
'Mhm.' said Pitch, wiggling his toes.  
  
'It should have only been me.'  
  
Pitch turned his head to look at him with his warm golden eyes, at the deep purple under his lids and the white glisten on his pouting lower lip. The flicker of flames on his face only made Jack look sicker. 'It is you.' Pitch said. 'You're very cursed, indeed.'  
  
Jack's mouth twisted with annoyance. He lightened himself in the armchair like he was getting ready to end the conversation by storming out - probably literally. 'My sick mother died.' He said, after Pitch had pointed his beaky nose at the fire instead of at him and relaxed into patient silence. 'My sister.'  
  
'You truly loved them.'  
  
Jack's gaze snapped to stare at Pitch's profile, framed with white by the blizzard outside the window. His expression was wild, wilder than usual. 'I stopped loving my sister.' He confessed. 'And now I hate myself for it.'  
  
'You truly love her, now, frozen heart be damned.'  
  
Jack looked fractured. 'I started loving her again.' He said, softly.  
  
Pitch understood now why Jack hated being told he wasn't the black-hearted monster he believed he should be - the haunted looking little girl in the portrait above the fireplace had been chipping away at the ice long before Pitch.  
  
'Family heals us.' Pitch sighed. 'I lost the Nightmare Queen. I lost our child.'  
  
'You had a child with the _Nightmare Queen?'_  
  
'An illegitimate daughter. She was fostered in the Kingdom of Light when her mother died, so she would learn to suppress her magic and deny her heritage. I haven't seen her for 12 years. I suspect I never will again.'  
  
'Sorry.' Jack mumbled. 'That's really awful.'  
  
Now Pitch found he couldn't meet Jack's eyes. 'Yes.' He said. 'It is.'

  
Pitch taught Jack how to lead his horse around the yard. She trotted loftily next to him, blowing warm air at the snowbanks and into Jack's hair, and he looked at her like he was amazed that something so full of life could exist in the wasteland he'd created.  
  
'Perhaps you'd like to clean her stall, as well.' Pitch joke, when Jack stopped in front of him, one of his papery hands resting on the horse's heavy black neck.  
  
To Pitch's surprise, Jack smiled at him. 'Yes.' He said, breathless from running in the freezing air.  
  
He worked like a peasant - with a blank face and quick hands, and he wasn't afraid to push Pitch's horse out of the way of his fork. Pitch filled water, piled hay into a corner of the stall, and showed Jack how to give a horse bread from the flat of his palm.  
  
They brushed her together, one on each side, Jack leaning into it like he wanted to exert all his negativity away, and maybe it would work, Pitch thought. Jack was good with animals. He had been a shepherd, Pitch remembered.  
  
'Bored?' Pitch asked spitefully, after Jack had successfully put the bridle on.  
  
'What?'  
  
'Are you bored?' He asked again.  
  
Jack's face looked almost slack, it was so open, and he said 'of course not, what are you talking about?' and took the reins, like he'd forgotten himself, and Pitch hoped he had, and hoped he would more often - Jack Frost the shepherd was beautiful.

  
  
Pitch woke to a soft, luxurious dawn. He forewent his cloak, left the castle through a servant's door, and looked out across the snowfields at the pink cast of the Sisters, at the gentle blue of the sky.  
  
When he'd served under the Nightmare Queen, the seductive purple smudges of the shadows cast by the trees in the orchard, the mystifying depth of the black sky, and the dramatic tableau of glittering stars that entrapped the Kingdom had enticed and excited him. He'd kissed her in darkness, feeling her instead of seeing her, searching blindly for her, so every caress felt like good luck. He'd thought he'd be happy never to see the sun again, never to feel its warmth on the backs of his hands. He could subsist on shade and the Queen's mysterious love, on candlelight and imported oranges, on the softness of her hair and the intelligent twinkle in her eyes.  
  
When she refused to marry him, he loved her for her independence. When she held their baby in her arms, he loved her for her strange and unexpected kindness. When she executed her opposition, he loved her for her dark malice. And after she was overthrown, cracks of light split the magic night, and her Knights who watched realised it had been day for four hours, but they hadn't known, and hadn't missed it at all, and Pitch loved her for fading as silently as the sun sets.  
  
Pitch watched the sky become a brittle blue. Winter was truly the most beautiful season - raw, unyielding.  
  
Something hit squarely in the back.  
  
'What are you thinking about?' Came Jack's voice from behind him. Pitch turned to see him wiping off his hands.  
  
'Did you throw snow at me?' He asked.  
  
'My question came first.'  
  
'I was thinking about how beautiful it is today.'  
  
Jack ducked his head. 'Yes.' He said. 'What, no one's ever thrown a snowball at you before?'  
  
'No one's ever been so foolish as to dare.'  
  
Jack bent swiftly and scooped up a pile of snow, lobbing it at Pitch's chest. 'You have to throw back.'  
  
'I'm not wearing gloves.' Pitch countered, brushing off his coat. 'I'm already looking forward to our fire this evening.'  
  
Jack shook his head with small, bemused smile, and stepped up next to him to watch the frozen lakes glisten.  
  
'The pass between the Sisters is melting.' Pitch remarked, folding his arms behind his back.  
  
'I didn't notice.'  
  
Jack was part of the warming day, feathery white hair catching and releasing flurries, white lashes flickering in the pale glare of the morning, tunic undone over the swell of his collarbone.  
  
Pitch wanted to kiss him - really, truly wanted to.  
  
He unclasped his hands and dragged one along Jack's shoulder blades, smoothed the bump of his shoulder, and rested his fingers on Jack's arm. He could see Jack's rib cage expand, his eyes widen. He licked his lips, but they were so chapped, blue like he'd been suffocating for years. Pitch bent down and in front of him, paused a moment with his long nose against Jack's bitingly cold one. And kissed him, the way a paintbrush kisses a canvas, lightly.  
  
When he straightened, Jack looked startled and torn. A flush of colour was tinting his skin pink. 'You -' He started to say, ' _You_ -'  
  
Pitch kissed him again. The sun was warm at he backs of his hands, at the backs of his eyelids, at his back. Jack was warm at his front, and he was _laughing._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I have the same excuses as usual :I I really hope you enjoy it; I can hardly believe we're at the end! I was a little uncertain about how to go about it, honestly. Hopefully it's alright. Thank you for reading and sticking around up until now - I really appreciate you guys <3 Cheers!

When Pitch stepped back, Jack was crying. 

'What have you done?' He whispered, still and brittle in the soft, sparkling snow. Pinkish spots mottled his face and the beds of his fingernails, blood rushing into his knuckles when he lifted his hands to cover his eyes. 

'Much.' Pitch responded. 

'You were supposed to try to kill me.'

'So you've said.'

They stood in strange silence, Jack looking at Pitch through the cracks in his fingers, dripping tears like a slow spring rain, and Pitch watching the morning grow behind the canopies of dormant trees. 

'I don't deserve this.' 

Pitch tucked his hands into the pockets of his britches. 'Nor, I suspect, do I.'

 

Morning stretched into a pleasant noon and a comparatively mild evening. Snow drifted lazily across the palace courtyard. Jack's living statues shone wetly, distorting the faces within. 

'They're melting.' Pitch noted, as he walked with Jack, who was leading Pitch's horse with a gold-spun rope. 

Jack's expression was blank. 'Yeah.' 

'They will understand.' 

Jack frowned. 'They'll want to finish the job.' He replied, looking pointedly at a warrior swinging a mace over their head, mouth open in a twisted shout. 'And I'll be the understanding one.' 

'You're not the first cursed ruler to decimate a Kingdom and alienate the neighbouring peoples.'

'Thank you.'

'Any time.' 

 

The statues did melt. Slowly, a trapped princess wiggled her fingers and shook frost particles from her long, red hair. A broad shouldered knight pulled an icicle off his raised arm and blinked up at the sharp blue sky for the first time since he failed in his quest to kill the Ice Prince of Burgess. A witch and wizard recognised each other across the courtyard and ran into each other's arms, the witch's boots still heavy blocks of solid ice. 

Jack had been watching the slow unveiling of his former foes from the steps of the castle, Pitch a solid black shadow behind him. 

When he cleared his throat, twenty pairs of startled, relieved, angry eyes turned to stare at him where he stood, small in a simple tunic and deer hide pants, a grey wolf's fur over his shoulders and his rich crown buried in his white hair. 'Uh,' he started, swallowing a lump in his throat. 'The curse has been lifted. You are all free... And I'm sorry.' 

Pitch put his hand on Jack's shoulder, fingers tight, as the previously frozen group of mercenaries, adventurers, and heroes exclaimed and jostled and banged swords against the insignia on their shields. 

Jack felt particularly guilty to announce that Burgess' eternal winter had been lifted due to true love's kiss, and undeservingly fortunate that the warriors all accepted packages of frozen bread and salted fish to sate them on their journey back through the Sisters and towards their homes, grateful for their lives, and basically uninterested in running him through or quartering him for his crimes.

'They were looking for adventure and glory, Jack.' Pitch reminded him as they watched a stout woman with a belt full of daggers stuff a solid gold plate down the back of her pants. 'They embraced the dangers.'  
'And what about you?' Jack asked, angling his face so his breath swept chilly against Pitch's mouth. 'Would you say you embraced the dangers?' 

Pitch laughed lowly. 'Oh, yes.'

 

Daeda, Berdart, and Tilyanna cracked and unfroze, their gentle waters consuming the ice and lapping at the snow banks. Pitch took a bucket to the lakes to water his horse twice daily, and drew living fish and green weed from their depths to eat. The first time he returned to the castle from one such trek, Jack met him with a sad, distant smile.

'I can't believe anything survived.' He said, as Pitch laid out the silvery fish and tough reeds. 

'These are resilient lands indeed.' Pitch agreed. 

And so they were. Deer wandered into the old farmer's fields to paw at the thawing ground, and mice started to chew on the horse bread in the barn. Burgess seemed to draw in a breath of warm air and wake almost easily from its long winter's sleep. 

Pitch and Jack spent an entire week emptying the castle stores of wine as they sat by the fire, riding over the tournament grounds and through frozen orchards, and sleeping with hands clasped in Jack's tower, whispering like secret lovers.

On a particularly bright day, they walked the long carpet in the throne room. Dust hung in the beams through the stained glass masterpieces, lit more vividly than they had been in years. 

They sat on they dais, side by side. 

'I don't want to be a Prince.' Jack said into the cavernous room. He'd taken to leaving his crown on his bedside table, wore mostly shifts and soft leather and hides.

'No.' Said Pitch, softly.

'I was never good at it.' Jack continued, 'I actually hated it. Even with... all this...' He gestured vaguely at the windows and the rich carpet and the carved pillars. 'I'm not like this.'

'You aren't.' Pitch sighed. 'That much was almost immediately obvious.'

Jack rolled his eyes and bumped Pitch with his shoulder. 'Do you think we could run away?'

'Probably. There is no one in this Kingdom. I hardly think we'd be missed.' 

It hadn't been long ago that Pitch had feared for his life as Jack spun shards of ice like knives and created hail that battered the marbled floors until they dented. The evidence was almost invisible now, the room almost comfortable. 

'Did you hear that?' Jack asked, lifting his head off his knees and waking Pitch from his memories. 

'Mm?'

'It sounded like -'

The door swung open easily and crashed against the wall, and Pitch was reminded again of his first meeting with Jack, except that now he was the one sitting baffled at the end of the hall, and Jack was using his shoulder as support to scramble up next to him. 

'Announcing Lady Seraphina, ward of His Royal Majesty King Lunar XI of Lunanoff!' bellowed an intruder dressed in a long purple coat and shining black boots. The Lady Seraphina, ward of His Royal Majesty King Lunar XI of Lunanoff swept in after him, her chin high and her long neck accented by a crest of ruffles. She looked imposing and tall, graceful and dark haired, with sharp golden eyes, determined broad shoulders, and a mouth set with tension, like a woman who had made up her mind about something long ago. 

She looked like Pitch. 

Jack nearly toppled over as Pitch rose quickly to his feet, shock in his face. 'Seraphina?' He breathed.

'Yes, father, it is I! I have been waiting for a Hero to break the curse on Burgess, so that I may become a Queen, as was my stolen birthright!' 

Jack was pretty sure Pitch had said his daughter was illegitimate, and as such had no such birthright, but decided against mentioning it. 

'You were in the tavern.' Pitch said, wonderingly.

'I was. I have guided many a Knight to this land, in the hope that they could be the downfall of the Ice Prince and clear my way to a throne. Since none have returned, I have come myself.' The shadows shifted on the floor around her like oil on water.

'I didn't recognise you.' 

Seraphina stood silent. The longer Jack looked at her, the younger she seemed. Her cheeks were rosy with health and her skin was sunkissed, like she spent most of her time outside enjoying summer weather. 'It hardly matters. I am here for the throne, not a father.'

Pitch looked touched. 'You are so like your mother.' He gushed.

'You can have it.' Said Jack. 'I don't want it.'

'Pardon me?' Said the Lady Seraphina, who had brought several knights in full mail with drawn swords. 

'I'm the son of a shepherd.' Jack told her. 'I'm not meant to be the Prince of Burgess.'

Pitch looked entranced as his daughter waved for her knights to lower their swords. 'An unexpected... but... wise decision.' She said, in her high, youthful voice. 'I have conquered the Kingdom!' 

The Knights clapped politely.

'Right.' Said Jack. 'I'll just...' He pulled a startled and mesmorised Pitch by the sleeve off the dais.

'Of course.' Seraphina brushed past him, confused, dark, and swirling with powerful magic, to sit on the throne. 

'All hail Seraphina, the Second Nightmare Queen, of Burgess!' Called the man in the purple coat. 

'All hail!' Repeated the Knights.

'Okay.' Said Jack. 

'I am so proud of you.' Said Pitch, blinking up at her.

Seraphina shrugged sheepishly and smiled, looking pleased and glorious. 

 

For a Nightmare Queen, Seraphina loved the light. Spring bloomed with roses, honeysuckle, and peonies; summer gushed with berries; and autumn was bountiful with apples, squash, and corn. Her magic made the spaces between stars darker, the nights heavier, sleepy and calm, so the days were more glorious and alive by contrast. She was vibrant, a lover of agriculture, a master of economy. 

Burgess burst with farms, lorded by her loyal Knights, and the market woke up each day as wagons bumped down the roads and around the lakes to feed it. Gradually, people moved back onto the fields and into the broken houses, drawn by the promise of plenty and the unexpectedly fair Queen of Shadows II. 

Jack and Pitch lived at the feet of the sisters in a small thatched house. Their barn was snaked with vines that grew dainty white flowers, and blue baby's breath coated the ground. Pitch's horse lived among Jack's fat sheep in their rolling meadows, knee high in sugary grasses. 

Each night, they sat by the fire in lumpy chairs, set their glasses down on a table next to a vase full of flowers plucked and gifted from Seraphina's personal garden, and together, they were never lonely. 

The warrior who had stolen the plate received a very high price for it, and enjoyed a comfortable life telling her tale in taverns around Lunanoff.

And they all lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it was alright! Thanks very much for reading :)


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